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9 - Peripheral Agriculture? Macro and Micro Dynamics of Land Sales and Land Use Changes in the ‘Rural’ Economy of Kancheepuram
- from Land and Rural Labour
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- By M. Vijayabaskar, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, Ajit Menon, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai
- Edited by R. Nagaraj, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay, Sripad Motiram, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay
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- Book:
- Political Economy of Contemporary India
- Published online:
- 08 February 2018
- Print publication:
- 30 December 2016, pp 205-229
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Summary
Introduction
On the outskirts of Chennai, land is increasingly being converted from the agricultural to the non-agricultural, a process that is often mediated by land sales. This phenomenon confirms recent findings that agricultural land markets are active and that institutional constraints on the sale of agricultural lands are less of an impediment than they were twenty years ago. So how do these land markets function and what are the implications of such markets for agriculture? There are two broadly divergent views about agricultural land markets. The first sees agricultural markets as a way to improve efficiency of agriculture. The second situates such markets in wider processes of development and capital accumulation and often associates it with land grabbing both within and outside of agriculture. We argue that while the activation of agricultural land markets is the result of particular priorities of development, there is a need for a more regionally grounded conceptual and empirical analysis that discloses how state policies impact land markets, what the micro-politics of land sales entail and how such land transactions affect different categories of farmers. By doing so, we also hope to interrogate the over-simplistic use of the tag land grab that often conceals more than it reveals.
Our discussion takes place in the context of Tamil Nadu's socio-economic development over the last two decades which has been characterized by two important features. First, the economy has witnessed a higher overall growth rate than that of the country as a whole. Coupled with declining rates in fertility and advances in public access to education and healthcare, this growth has been accompanied by higher per capita incomes and improvements in human development (Dreze and Sen, 2013; Kalaiyarasan, 2014). Second, despite having witnessed high levels of both economic growth and social development, the agricultural sector has been stagnant with one of the lowest rates of growth of output in the country and a decline in the gross cropped area (Bhalla and Singh, 2009). While declining returns to agriculture and the accompanying crisis has been an all-India phenomenon, it has been more acute in Tamil Nadu (Vijayabaskar, 2010). Moreover, despite relatively high growth rates in certain sub-sectors of agriculture in the recent past agricultural income, as well as returns from farming, have declined.
Chapter 7 - Forests, Hydrological Services, and Agricultural Income: A Case Study from the Western Ghats of India
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- By Sharachchandra Lele, Centre for Environment and Development, Iswar Patil, Shrinivas Badiger, Centre for Environment and Development, Ajit Menon, Madras Institute of Development, Rajeev Kumar, District Agriculture Development Office
- A. K. Enamul Haque, M. N. Murty, Priya Shyamsundar
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- Book:
- Environmental Valuation in South Asia
- Published online:
- 05 November 2012
- Print publication:
- 15 August 2011, pp 141-169
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Summary
Introduction
Tropical forest ecosystems generate multiple benefits to society, among which are goods such as fuelwood, fodder, timber, leaf manure, food and medicines, and services such as carbon sequestration, habitat for wildlife, and biodiversity. One important set of benefits from forest ecosystems is watershed services, which include hydrological regulation (groundwater recharge, low-flow augmentation, and flood control) and soil conservation. Thus, changes in forest conditions are likely to have profound implications for society. This is particularly true in the case of river basins in South Asia, where forests as well as water resources are being used intensively by a large population, often under a highly seasonal rainfall regime.
In spite of their importance, the watershed service benefits of tropical forests and associated ecosystems are perhaps the least well understood and the most contentious of all forest-related benefits. Neither are the physical relationships between forest cover and watershed services adequately understood, nor (partly as a consequence) are their socio-economic impacts accurately assessed. As a result, when it comes to the management of forested watersheds, policy making is dominated by conventional wisdom that assumes that ‘more forest’ of any kind at any location and in place of anything else is ‘better’ for all watershed services for all communities downstream. Such oversimplifications are no longer scientifically tenable.
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